Ooh, look at this: I formally make no claims on the Trigun franchise.
Well, I haven't moved yet, so you guys get another chapter. Let my loss be your gain. Enjoy!
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She continued to watch him as he settled down to sleep. If he noticed her staring at him he gave no sign. She wondered idly what that meant. Surely he noticed that she was looking in his direction. Did it not bother him? Of course it must; she was just a vermin, her very gaze must be dirty. Did he want her to think that it didn't bother him? Did he thing that she was that stupid? Did he know that she wasn't stupid enough to believe that he would not be bothered by her looking at him? Did he know that she knew that. . . oh, never mind. There was only so far she was willing to take that train of thought.
Besides, this was not the time to be worrying over things like Knives' supposed reaction to her idle glances. The shakes from the forced link were beginning to set in. Sitting as she did with her hands laced around her knees it was hard to tell how queasy and wobbly she was, but she knew they had started. The best thing for her right now would be food, would be some energy, but her stomach rebelled at the thought of anything entering.
Watching Knives, she wondered if her was feeling them. Could plants get the shakes? This teaching thing was hard enough for her, and the fact that he was an alien being didn't make things any less complicated. Maybe she was the one from another universe, or galaxy, or wherever, but at least she was mostly human. She didn't know what plants were capable of, beyond the generic idea of "much more then her." Not knowing, not even having the slightest clue of the capabilities of her student was tying her stomach in knots.
She thought she was doing a good job of keeping her uneasiness from showing, but then again, with Knives, who could tell? She worried that one of these days she was going to show him something and, because he was different, that there would be problems. With her luck, she would try to teach him light-shaping, and he would blow up the oasis. Or the region. Or the planet. Or he would spontaneously combust.
No, this teaching idea was a bad one, no matter how you looked at it. If she could find some way to stop, she would. Could she train him without killing him? Did she want to? An untrained Knives had managed to blow up two cities by proxy, and had personally been responsible for the deaths of innumerable humans. If he could take the knowledge she could teach him and apply it to the eradication of the human race she wasn't sure she had a chance of stopping him. That she could keep herself alive, and a few others, she had no doubt. But enough to keep the race viable? That was a tricky question.
Evolution theorists said that the entire human race came from a small group of ten thousand individuals in Africa. Saving that many people would be enough to save the race, but it would be very difficult, and the trouble with having to protect that many lay in the fact that she would only have to fail once. Killing Knives would be a tricky proposition, and he wasn't the sort of person who lacked the will to see a project to the end. No, he would keep attacking until he finally smashed through her defenses, and that would be the end.
Plus, she wasn't immortal. Another twenty years and she wouldn't be any sort of match for him. He'd likely be just the same as he was now, young and powerful while she was aging and dying. Could she find someone to take her place? Were there humans like her on this planet, somewhere? Or had the genetic engineers of this universe, or galaxy, or whatever bent their talents towards the creation of the plants and ignored the latent talents of humanity?
Too many questions, too many problems. The right time to ponder them was not while suffering through the shakes. Groaning, she shook her head and started to stand. She placed her hands in the sand beside her and began to push herself up. Before she stood, she realized that she had been thinking of teaching, and students, and hadn't flinched from the word once. She hadn't even noticed that she had been thinking it. She shot a startled glance at Knives, surprised that what he did to her had actually had a beneficial side effect.
Knives had settled down and fallen asleep while she had mused on the impossibility of stopping him. The soft blue light bobbed slowly by his head, swayed by his breath. Even from where she sat, she could see his face contorted in pain.
"Looks like plants get the shakes, too," she whispered guiltily as she got to her feet. She padded over to him on cat feet, careful not to wake him as she drew near. The agony in his face wrenched something inside her, some last bastion of pity, and she found herself falling to her knees and smoothing the hair from his troubled brow. She knew he was a horrible man, she knew that he probably deserved to sleep with pain for a night, but there was something in his face that made her feel maternal.
Maybe it was the lost-little boy look of his scrunched up face, or maybe it was the lines of pain on his otherwise smooth brow, but somehow she found herself laying the back of her hand on his forehead, a feather-light touch before starting a link. She drew out the pain and mixed it with the agony inside her. You couldn't make pain disappear, but you could spread it around, and she was used to pain. It didn't bother her that much.
"No use both of us losing sleep over this," she breathed, her lips shaping the words with only the barest hint of sound. Then, on impulse, she leaned over and placed a soft kiss on the now untroubled cheek. The smell of his hair was tantalizing, soft and sweet, like feathers. She inhaled deeply, then rose with one smooth motion and left to go climb a spire. If she could work herself into exhaustion, she might manage a few hours of decent sleep tonight.
Knives opened his eyes a fraction and watched her go. He would never understand humans.
As she climbed a spire, the lights danced and bobbed around her, creating shadows and obscuring handholds. Nothing like a challenge to keep her mind off the fact that her hands were shaking almost bad enough to make her lose her grip. Concentration, that was key. If she could just keep her mind focused on climbing she could ignore the pain that was eating her up inside. She was beginning to regret her impulse to take Knives' pain as well. Not that she regretted taking it from him, but it was beginning to hurt a lot, and she wasn't sure how easy this night was going to be on her.
She toyed with the idea of letting him know what she was going through for him, but discarded it with a wry little smile. He wasn't going to care that she did something nice for him; he probably would expect it. Besides, how nice would she be if she badgered him into acknowledging her sacrifice? It was better to do a good deed that goes unnoticed then to annoy the crazy man who hadn't asked for her help in the first place.
Whose stupid idea was it to go rock climbing in the dark anyway? She would have wondered at her sanity if she hadn't already come to terms with the fact that she was insane. She needed to get to the top of the rock, and quickly. Every second was growing more and more precious. The shakes were beginning to overwhelm her concentration, and it was a long way to the desert floor.
She was almost to the top when her hand cramped. This wasn't a good sign. Another fifteen feet and she would have made it without incident. Instead, she had to fight through the pain that radiated from her palm. As she slowly straightened her fingers her other hand began to twinge. The danger of her position gave her a boost of energy, and she was able to ignore the pain long enough to pull herself to the top. Adrenaline junkie, danger seeker, trouble's friend, she was used to the chemical energy boost.
As soon as she was able, she collapsed in a small pile. The exertions of the climb echoed in her arms and shoulders, but that pain was nothing in comparison to the shakes. The muscles in her chest and abdomen began to spasm, jerking her against the cold stone, and shaking her close to the edge.
Grimly, she inched away from the fall, pulling herself along with fingertips devoid of strength. Some small portion of her mind noted that the shakes had never been this bad before, but most of her concentration was filled with the immediate problem of not dying. It took her ten minutes to crawl fifteen feet from the edge, and in that time the severity of the shakes did not abate. Finally deeming herself far enough away from the dangerous precipice, she curled up in a ball and concentrated on breathing. Her diaphragm was the only muscle in her chest that she had any control over, but the spasms of the surrounding muscles made it incredibly difficult to take anything beyond a shallow breath.
Tears of pain poured down her face, mixing with grit and getting in her mouth. The taste of snot and dirt and salt coated her tongue, and she'd have tried to swallow the taste away if she could. Time held no meaning as she endured the pain and the suffocation as her body betrayed her, turning against her.
The body was not meant to hold memories not its own, and tried to force them from it. Scientists and metaphysicists had both tried to find an answer to this problem, but both were stumped. The forced transfer of memories did not seem to affect the body in a physical matter during transfer, but when the mind was not properly attuned to the transfer the body would respond with the shakes.
Unfortunately, and despite all physical evidence to the contrary, the shakes were not psychosomatic. They affected everyone, even those who had no idea that they were possible. Even so, logic dictated that they were only a figment of the imagination. Kiley spent the time huddled in a ball chanting to herself, trying to convince her body that there was no reason to be going through this hell. It seemed to help.
After an eternity of pain, she began to feel nauseated, and instead of depressing her more, she felt her spirits rise. It was a sign that the attack was coming to a close. In another fifteen minutes or so she would be able to breathe normally again. Everything would slowly calm back to normal, and she might have a whole half an hour until the next attack. She figured she would probably go through five of six of these tonight, unless she could exhaust herself into a state of unconsciousness.
Driving herself into a coma was dangerous, but she had found it to be the easiest way of dealing with the shakes. With any luck, she would managed to collapse before the next episode.
As soon as she could, she pushed herself to her feet. Concentrating only on the movements her body was making, she stepped forward, each step sure and confident, defying the tremors that ran through her taxed and tired muscles. She pushed herself as far as she could, as fast as she could, and while she wasn't able to do anything strenuous, dogged determination kept her on her feet as she tried to wear herself out. The more tired she got, the harder she pressed on, until the last reserves of energy were depleted.
Her last conscious thought was one of triumph as she fell to the rock, spent of every last drop of vitality. When she hit she gashed open her temple, and the blood mixed with the tears she had forgotten to wipe away. The lights around her winked out, dissipating into the night and she slept.
The two suns were well above the horizon when Kiley finally struggled out of sleep. She found herself splayed on her back, limbs akimbo and broiling under the suns. Her entire body ached with a bone deep weariness that throbbed in time with her pulse. She tried to swallow, but there was not enough moisture in her mouth to complete the task. The pounding in her head heralded the worst headache of her life.
All in all, it felt like the worst hangover she had ever had, doubled. It took her a minute to collect her thoughts enough to roll over. When she was on her stomach, she pressed her forehead to the cool stone and wondered if she had enough energy to climb down from this lofty perch. After a slow check of the way she felt, the answer was no.
She cursed herself for climbing up there in the first place. While it seemed like a good idea at the time, and while she didn't realize that the shakes were going to be as horrible as they had been, she should have realized it was a bad idea. Medical emergencies and nighttime rock climbing don't go together, and taking herself out of reach of the only water source was nearly suicidal. You would think, after years of stupid stunts like this one, she would begin to learn, but no. Give her a month and she would most likely do something to top even this stunt.
She allowed herself the small luxury of a groan before crawling to the edge of the spire. Yup. Down there was water. She could see the sun glinting off the surface, and wondered if she had enough energy to get some without passing out. Hmm, uhh, probably. Worth a shot, at least.
She reached out with her mind and gently pulled a sphere of water out of the spring. Concentrating through the pounding in her head she floated it up towards her. For a moment her control slipped, but only a few drops spilled to the ground before she caught it again. Drinking it did much for the pounding in her head, but it awoke a raging hunger. Her stomach reminded her that she had skipped dinner the night before and seemed to have missed breakfast. It also let her know that these were very bad things that she needed to take care of right now.
Despite the prodding of hunger, she stayed where she was for a moment, enjoying the partial relief. The ground was still very far away, and she was still very tired. She toyed with the notion of floating some food up there as well, then decided that it was probably a better idea then trying to climb down to get it. She looked for her pack, then slowly concentrated on undoing the ties. Luckily, her food was on top of everything, and she grabbed the first thing from the bag and lifted it to her.
Bread. Glorious, wonderful, three-day old bread. She dug into it, ripping chunks off the loaf and shoving them in her mouth, swallowing as fast as she could. After eating she felt a little better, but still didn't want to move. Instead she lay there, her head hanging out into space while her body leeched warmth from the suns. She tensed and relaxed her muscles, trying to work the kinks out without actually moving.
Motion below caught her eye. Knives was walking over to the base of her spire.
"What are you doing up there?" he yelled.
"Escaping from you," she yelled back.
He didn't say anything, but stood there and stared up at her. She contemplated how small he was, and how she could cover his whole body with her thumb. She debated proving that but decided that moving was too much work.
Knives walked up to the very base of the tower and started to climb.
"Don't," Kiley called out.
Knives stopped a few feet from the ground and looked up with a smile. "It doesn't look like you can stop me," he commented.
"I have rocks," she retorted. Sweeping one arm across the ground she scattered pebbles over the edge. Most bounced harmlessly into the air, but a couple hit him. He jumped back from the wall and looked up at her, hands on hips.
"Get down here," he demanded.
"I'm trying," she yelled back. Suiting actions to words, she managed to get to her hands and knees. She backed around and flopped her legs over the edge. Slowly lowering herself, she began the torturous descent.
She had to stop for a minute when she was halfway down. A sudden wave of nausea forced her to relieve herself of everything she had eaten that morning. Knives danced out of the way of the descending digestive matter, his disgust evident on his face.
"Did you go up there to get drunk?" he asked.
"Worst hangover of my life," she answered proudly. She tried to sketch a saucy little salute, but lost her grip instead. For a brief moment, it looked like she was going to recover, but slowly she toppled off the side of the spire.
Frantically, she tried the only trick she could think of to slow her plunge. She made webs of air but broke through them with barely any change in her rate of descent. Smashing through them tingled, a strange sensation that she would have pondered if she wasn't fighting for her life. She had only time to create three of them before reaching the floor. As she fell, she relaxed and closed her eyes, hoping to keep from breaking anything vital when she hit.
Landing was painful, but not as much as she had been expecting. She opened her eyes and looked into Knives'. Those big baby blues were so close, but she couldn't decipher the expression on his face. Relief? Pride? Disgust?
"My hero," she said softly, one hand moving up to touch his cheek. She stopped herself before connecting, unsure of his reaction.
A strange look crossed his face. He dropped her to the sand and walked away.
Knives stalked back across the oasis, fuming and annoyed with himself. He should have let her fall. Whatever impulse moved him to catch her was nothing more then a temporary bit of insanity, a malaise of emotion. He wiped his palms on his pants, trying to get the feel of her off his skin. His shoulders ached from catching her, not painfully, but annoyingly. He rotated them, trying to ease some of the tension, but found no relief.
Him, saving a human. A superior breed and he lowered himself, demeaned himself by coming to her rescue. The fall probably wasn't going to kill her. She would have been easier to manipulate if she was broken in a few places. It would have been interesting to see what she would do if she were dependent on him. He entertained a brief fantasy of dragging her up one of these stupid rocks and pushing her off to find out. He discarded it reluctantly, knowing that she was unlikely to accommodate his desire.
Besides, somehow she would manage to twist the situation around to her advantage, he was sure. He had never met a human so used to getting her own way. Most humans accepted that the world would not accede to their demands, and changed to fit circumstances. She didn't make demands. She just decided what she was going to do and made the world fit around her actions. Saying that she demanded something implied that the rest of the world had a choice.
She would make such a wonderful pet, though, if he could tame her. Legato had done well, but he had been a broken toy long before Knives ever met him. Making Legato dance to his tune had been easy; he merely had to show that he was a superior being and he fell all over himself trying to be useful. That woman, on the other hand, refused to admit that she was outclassed. She didn't want to understand that as a plant, he was so much greater then her that she had no chance to be anything near his equal. Instead, she stubbornly ignored his attempts to put her in her place. What made it annoying instead of amusing was the way she didn't acknowledge his actions as anything potentially troubling. No, she saw him more as a child demanding to be treated as an adult.
Damn her! The more time he spent around her, the more annoyed he got. She should be falling all over herself to do his bidding. Instead, she sat in her lotus pose, teaching him things that he had never dreamed existed. He almost found him trying to coerce information out of her with something other then threats. Him! Ask for something from a mere human! The thought was bad enough to make him grit his teeth.
He knew more about her then he had about anyone else, alive or dead, and he still didn't understand her at all. At the end of her childhood she was a broken, angry mess. Now, she seemed almost serene, at peace with herself. She didn't look as if many years could have elapsed from the time of the memories she "shared" with him, but being an other-dimensional being, who could tell how old she was when she died?
It was difficult for him to accept that she was an alien. It explained many things about her, and how she was able to perform these little tricks of hers, but it didn't explain how she knew so much about him, and about this world. If she was from another dimension, how did she know so much about this planet, and him? Did that Dream Dancer thing tell her? And if it had, why had she been surprised to see him that first day?
And why him, of all beings? Why was she sent to him? If he felt like being conceited, he would assume that the universe had sent him a teacher to aid him in his quest to destroy the humans. He didn't believe that, but couldn't come up with a better reason. Why him? It can't have been an accident that she showed up where she did, and when she did. Someone must have had a reason, a desire to distract him. She had worked admirably on that score, but did she know? How much did she know about him and this world.
It was enough to drive him to distraction. If only she had been male, this would have been easier. Females were born only to be ornery, and to drive men insane with their lack of logic. What had possessed her to climb up there last night? He knew that she hadn't gone up there to drink, but she hadn't denied his allegation. Was she so afraid to show weakness that she would risk death instead of showing that she was fallible?
That fit with what he knew of her, but how could he use it against her? He wouldn't show weakness in front of an enemy, either. All this told him was that she considered him dangerous, which was something he already knew. It was good that she was respectful of his capacity for violence, but he knew that already. The problem with her was that she respected him, but did not fear him, and he didn't know how to control someone except through fear.
It was easy enough, if distasteful, to decide to be nice to a vermin. But how was he supposed to erode her defenses when she was so suspicious all the time. She was cautious almost to the verge of paranoia, unwilling to see anything he did as simple. She was too smart to be taken in by pretty words and gestures. No, to make her trust him at all, to give him a means to manipulate her, he would have to actually like her.
He didn't know if he could come to enjoy the presence of a vermin, let alone this vermin. She was frustrating, aggravating, and seemed to delight in annoying him.
What he ignored was that she was a lot like him.
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Kiley watched Knives stalk away, and wondered what she should have said. He was too touchy, that was his problem. You couldn't say anything to him without him taking it the wrong way. She wasn't sure what way she wanted him to take what she had said, but dropping her on her butt definitely wasn't it.
It was so hard for her to stay suspicious around him. She knew he was a bastard, had seen some of the horrors he was responsible for, but when he looked down at her with those big blue eyes, all she wanted was to believe was that he was as kind as he was beautiful. Acknowledging that beautiful people could be evil had always been one of her weaknesses; Knives was definitely one of the beautiful people.
She would have sat there longer and stewed over what had happened, but nausea revisited her, and thought was discarded in favor of dry heaves. She rolled over and forced herself to her hands and knees, ignoring the soreness in her lower back and rear. When the spasm passed, she looked up and towards the water, judging the distance against what was left of her stamina. It didn't look like she was going to make it.
Nothing worth doing is easy, she consoled herself, as she made herself crawl forward. Coordinating her arms and legs was difficult, thought-intensive work. Somehow she managed to stumble and plowed her face into the sand. She found the energy to lift her eyes a few inches and looked behind her. She had managed to travel a whopping twelve feet before collapsing. She wasn't going to make it.
She stopped trying to move for a minute in favor of pondering her situation. If she couldn't make it to the water, she'd most likely die. Dying on her hands and knees; it wasn't exactly the way she pictured her dreams ending. She wondered idly why she expected her dreams to be nicer to her then life had been.
Greg would be laughing so hard he'd be crying, if he could see her now. Her old second-in-command, he loved watching when she got in over her head. Thankfully, when he was done laughing he would always help her get out of trouble. She thought about him wistfully, wondering what he was doing now. Hopefully, he was treating her people well, keeping them alive. Maybe the war had finally ended; it had almost looked like it was going to happen before she was captured, before he had betrayed her.
She pushed the maudlin thoughts away, trying to concentrate on the problem before her. Her eyes were beginning to lose their focus. She blinked rapidly, but it didn't do her any good. Fear got her crawling again, but she kept falling before making any progress. Stubbornness kept her trying, but she had moved beyond the point where stubbornness was enough to keep her going. She could feel her body quitting on her, feel something breaking as her limbs ignored all commands to move. Instead of helping her towards her goal, they began to spasm, jerking weakly in all directions. She was still trying to move towards the water when she slipped into unconsciousness.
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Knives looked up from his brooding and initially couldn't see the vermin. Frowning, he looked harder, and was surprised to see her sprawled on the sand. She didn't seem to be moving. That was odd; she was always moving, always full of energy. Yet there she was, a still shape collapsed on the sand. Maybe she had broken when he dropped her. Curious, he wandered over and looked down at her. He couldn't tell if she was breathing or not.
He kneeled next to her head and put his hand in front of her nose. Yes, she was still breathing, but not easily. He placed his hand on her forehead, feeling the cold and clammy skin. He wiped his hand and stood up. She wasn't healthy, that much was obvious. He didn't know what her problem was, as he didn't care enough about the ailments of vermin to have ever made a study, but his guess was shock. He glanced at the nearby pool of water, then sighed. He went and rummaged in his bag until he found a cup. He filled it, then returned to her and dumped it on her head. She didn't respond. He sighed again and set the cup down. He picked her up and moved her to the shade, propping her into a seated position before getting another glass of water.
This one he tried to pour down the inside of her, but it was not an easy task. The angle was wrong for pouring something down her throat when she was sitting against the rocks, so he shoved her around until her head was resting on her shoulder. The laxness of her unconscious body kept her from swallowing. Much of what went in her mouth dribbled out the sides and off her chin, making an awful mess on both of them. Finally he got enough down her for her to begin swallowing on her own. Unfortunately, by the time she could take small sips he had run out of water again. When he tried moving her, she let out a pitiful whimper and snuggled closer, unwilling to let him leave.
He looked down at her unguarded face and wondered just how tough she really was. He wouldn't whimper, or snuggle, or do anything quite so demeaning, no matter how sick he was. He also wouldn't let himself get this sick. She was obviously dehydrated, so this illness of hers was her fault. He had never courted death the way this woman seemed to, and didn't understand why she insisted on weakening herself like this. He pushed her out of his lap and ignored the noises she made.
He coaxed another cup of water down her throat before setting the cup down. He wanted to lay her on the sand, but she seemed reluctant to move. Since humans derived comfort from touch he held her, hoping that it might make her feel better faster. She was of no use to him broken like this.
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Waking up was harder then usual. Sleep seemed reluctant to let her go. She was trying to join the world of conscious people, but it was a difficult fight, a fight made even harder by her confusion. She wasn't sure why she was asleep, but she was fairly certain that she wasn't supposed to be. Something felt wrong, somehow, and that wrongness made her want to relax and sink back into unconsciousness. She didn't want to confront whatever wasn't right, but had learned that ignoring problems rarely made them go away. She struggled against the feeling of lethargy and managed to wake up enough to begin to feel that things were really wrong.
One of the first things she realized was that she was being held. It felt nice, and warm, and safe. She would have been willing to sit like that for a good while longer, but as soon as she stopped struggling to wake up she began to fall asleep again. As she forced herself to wake up, she began to wonder just who was holding her. It couldn't be Greg, as he always smelled of aftershave, and whoever this was, he certainly didn't have a chemical scent. No, it was a much softer scent, but spicy. It was almost like cinnamon, but different, more exotic. It was strange; she felt like she should be able to identify it, but she couldn't. It was wonderful, and she inhaled deeply, trying to imprint the smell on her senses. Her memory could supply her with no matches no matter how hard she tried to find one. Trying to puzzle it out woke her up further, as she tried to identify both the scent and the man holding her.
She figured out who it was as the memory of the last few months hit her in a rush, and hot on its heels came a crashing headache. Death, Knives, teaching, links, shakes. . . Knives. She must be in his arms. She groaned and tried to push away, but she was too weak to do much more then squirm. Her best efforts got her nowhere, but they did attract his attention.
"Stop that," Knives said testily. Rather then calm her, his words put her into a panic and she tried harder to get away. He tightened his grip on her and waited. She wore herself out before making any headway, and finally subsided into a sulky silence. She would have glared at him if she could open her eyes.
She started to speak, but her voice came out as an unintelligible rasp. She swallowed and tried again.
"Let me go," she demanded as strongly as she could.
"Why?" he asked. "I'm not hurting you."
"I don't trust you," she said.
She could hear the smile in his voice as he replied. "At the moment, I don't see what that has to do with anything. I could kill you right now, and you couldn't stop me." He paused and waited for her to make a comment, but continued when she stayed silent. "If I wanted you dead, I could have just ignored you. You are useful to me for the moment; I will not let you escape."
That was logic she could accept from him. Enlightened self-interest didn't scare her; she was used to that. Altruism worried her. There was always some hidden catch, something that bound you, a debt needing repayment. She had enough debts to repay that she was glad to not be adding to the balance. She relaxed against him.
"What happened?" asked Knives after a moment.
"You called it earlier. I climbed up there and got drunk," Kiley lied.
His arm tightened painfully around her, a warning. "You have no alcohol here," he said coldly. "I want to know what really happened."
She sighed. She mumbled something, but Knives squeezed her even tighter, hurting her already sore shoulders, so she tried enunciating. "I got the shakes," she said.
"That isn't quite an answer," he cautioned.
She turned her head away and continued. "Whenever you do something like mind rape, like what we did yesterday, something evil and wrong, you get the shakes. I think it has something to do with violating the mental space of others, a psychic defense system, if you will, but no one knows for sure. The more violent the offense, the worse the shakes."
Knives thought for a moment, then commented, "I didn't get the shakes."
She blushed faintly and turned her head some more.
"I took them from you. I figured, I was used to them, I could handle them. I didn't want to hear you whine," she finished up lamely.
"You took them from me," he said flatly, a statement instead of a question.
"Yeah," she said softly.
"Why?" he prodded, making her answer. Her discomfort was obvious, but he didn't care. He wanted to know; anything else was not his problem.
"I figured that I was going to suffer anyway, so I might as well let one of us have a decent night's sleep. Besides, I didn't want you to think I was attacking you or anything. It seemed safer if I just took your pain. It just ended up being harder then I had anticipated."
"So, you would put yourself though agony to not have to deal with my anger?" he asked.
"It's more like I didn't want to have to hear you whine," she said, trying for a flippant tone, but falling flat.
They both fell silent, lost in their own thoughts. Knives wondered anew at the perplexities of this human. Kiley wondered if she had done the right thing by taking the shakes from Knives, and realized she was thirsty.
"Do you have any water?" she asked, and was rewarded with a cool cup at her lips. She drank greedily.
"Thank you," she said when the cup was empty.
Knives looked at her, then lowered her to the sand and walked away. Kiley opened her eyes and wondered what she had said wrong this time as she watched him go. Inexplicably, she missed the feel of his arms around her.
Kiley contemplated taking another little nap, but decided that she was more thirsty then tired. Moments dragged by as she waited for Knives to come back with some water, but she gave up the wait when he settled down for a nap of his own. Slowly, she pulled herself to her feet and walked to the pool. Her gait was slow and halting but she managed to not fall. She collapsed slowly at the edge, more a controlled fall then actually losing control, and dipped her hand in the water. Too much was falling from her hand as she brought it to her mouth, so she leaned over and drank.
She lifted her head after her stomach was full and sloshy, and looked in the pool. The water was clear and deceptively shallow. The bottom of the basin looked close enough to touch, but she knew she could put her arm in the water up to her shoulder and not reach the bottom. On a whim, she took a deep breath and stuck her head in. The cool water was like heaven on her face, and there was something about looking underwater that had always fascinated her. Water was so close to air, but so different. It made everything softer, dimmer then air; sounds traveled to her ears differently, normal sounds taking on whole new dimensions.
She stayed down there, letting her mind wander in a world so unlike the one of air, using the novelty as a barrier between her and thoughts she would rather not peruse. It was nice underwater, safe. She felt herself falling asleep and didn't fight the feeling. Soon enough she would rejoin the air world. For now, she was luxuriating in the environment that had always called to her.
Then she was ripped from it. Her startlement caused her to inhale water before her face reemerged in the air, so she was coughing and spluttering as Knives turned her around. He was glaring at her, and she was more then angry enough to return the stare.
"What the hell were you thinking?" he asked.
Surprise caused her to widen her eyes. "What, do you think I was trying to kill myself?" she asked incredulously.
At the look on his face, she laughed, her anger falling from her like the water dripping off her face. "I can hold my breath for seven minutes without discomfort. If I wanted to kill myself, I would have had to be underwater a little longer then that," she explained.
"Then why were you sitting with your face in the water?" he asked with a shake. It was violent enough to rattle her teeth, but she didn't take offense. It was just his way of showing he cared.
"I like water," she said simply. "I like the feel of it, the look of things in it. I figured I might as well enjoy the pool until I wasn't thirsty anymore."
Knives released his grip on the nape of her neck. Her legs were too shaky to support her and she collapsed to the sand again.
"You keep that up and I'm going to one big bruise," she complained.
He said nothing, merely stared down at her, his face unreadable. She looked at him with annoyance, but gradually schooled her expression into impassiveness as well.
"Do you strive to be annoying?" he finally asked.
The question startled another laugh out of her, but she cut it off after one quick bark. It was a serious question and deserved a serious answer. She actually pondered for a moment before replying, making sure the answer was given the thought it deserved.
"No, I don't try to be annoying. But I have spent a good portion of my life not caring if I annoyed people or not. I don't give the effect my actions might have on others much thought. I just don't care that much for other people to base my actions on their reactions. Most people don't deserve such consideration," she said.
"I do," said Knives coldly.
Kiley didn't respond with anything other then a small smile this time.
Knives thought over what she said, then sat down in front of her. He settled in his learning pose and waited.
"What?" she asked. "Do you really think I'm in any condition to teach you at the moment?"
Knives arched one brow and responded. "Will it kill you?"
Kiley rolled her eyes. "No," she started. She would have said more but Knives cut her off.
"Anything else does not concern me. Learning from you does. I want to make those lights," he demanded.
Kiley looked at his eyes, trying to judge how determined he was. She sighed, then complied, forcing herself to sit up and link.
When the link was over, she collapsed back onto the sand, her head hitting the edge between the rock and the water.
"Ow," she said, but didn't move. All the energy she had recovered that afternoon had disappeared. She consoled herself with the thought that at least this time she was near the water and wouldn't have to move.
When Kiley woke up again, it was night. Knives had ringed the oasis with lights of all colors, creating a festive air that was probably accidental. Globes of blues and greens were draped on the rocks, with tiny, twinkling gold and silver lights forming arches in between. Reds, purples, and more golds dotted the air in the ring, their lights all but obscuring the stars. These last lights danced in lazy patterns, slowly swirling through the air in a glorious haze. They formed languid arrangements of mathematical precision, art made by a mind focused on logic and the world that could be understood with the senses.
Kiley lazily lifted a finger and created silver balls of light at the tip, shooting them into the pattern, altering what Knives had created without changing its basic nature. She juggled them randomly through the structure, highlighting some elements that might have been obscured otherwise, adding an element of chaos that accentuated rather then detracted from the whole. She drew music out of the air, a composition of the moment that merged with the play of lights and blended flawlessly. Her eyes looked to the sky alone, watching only what danced before her, not caring for the moment that Knives was the creator of this piece of art she was changing. He might have been jealous, but she thought not. They were harmonizing, for once acting in concert and not against each other, and what they created was beautiful.
The tune was simple, yet complex, a six note theme repeating yet changing slightly with each repetition. It was backed by a slow swell of sound that coordinated with the major themes of the movement of the lights. Time slowed then disappeared altogether as the music overwhelmed all other senses. There was only an infinite now supported by beauty and light. The end result was a light show that surpassed anything she had ever been a part of. It was impromptu and entirely random on her part, but it felt right. The pattern established by Knives gave her room to play as her heart desired, moving in and out of patterns with ease tempered with whimsy. It had been a long time since she had innocently played, and never like this, never with this feeling of making something special.
Somehow, without thought or design, both the lights and the music moved to a climax. The soft sounds crescendoed and echoed off the rocks, the echoes blending into the music until it was a counterpoint to the tune. The lights grew brighter and flew faster through the air, twirling along like formal dancers at a ball. Then the peak was over, and things began to slow, began to reemerge in time.
Their pageant of light did not stop, but slowly faded back into time before passing away to a point where it could no longer be sensed outside of memory. The music softened away until it was only heard in the mind, and the dance of the lights slowed until the eye could no longer track it. Finally, everything slowed to stasis, both pattern and the random stopping, ending, finding completion.
She finally looked over at Knives. Her face was flushed with pleasure, but it faded as she met his eyes. They were so cold; they were like chips of ice in his face. He stared at her, but his expression gave nothing away. She began to wonder if she had done something wrong. Surely if she had, he would have halted his part of the symphony, would not have continued if she had been interfering. Her expression faded to confusion, and then to a mask much like the one Knives sported.
What was his problem? Was he upset that a human had contributed to a thing of such beauty? Elitist snob. Sick of his prejudices, she indulged in a bit of whimsy and stuck her tongue out at him.
He sniffed loudly and turned away. Kiley shook herself out of the dregs of the trancelike state the music had invoked. She dragged her sad and sorry butt over to her supplies and ate until she was replete. While she ate, her eyes drifted skyward, and her heart ached to see the magic that was already fading into the coldness of the desert night. The stars twinkled down through the lights that grew ever fewer as Knives slowly snuffed them out. She imagined their coldness, staring down on an unlovely world. She stopped looking as she felt depression settling in, willing the feeling of joy from the moment before to stay with her a while longer. When her stomach was full, she rolled herself in her blanket and slept.
She didn't even notice when Knives snuffed the lights so she could sleep better.
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Knives looked over at the still form of the woman. How dare she intrude on his practice? To make just a few of these lights had been child's play, but making and holding so many had taxed even him, and he had been testing his control when she woke up and decided to interfere. He had been tempted to stop when she first joined in, but decided to not let her obstruction change his plans. Altering the desires of a superior being to fit the whims of vermin had always struck him as a ludicrous way of spending time. Then she had changed the paradigm when she created that music, and it became less an exercise in control then a work of art.
As soon as it changed into the realm of the subjective he became angry. Art was for weaklings, humans, creatures who needed to change the world to find beauty instead of appreciating what was there. He would have stopped then, but the music touched him, held him, and kept him from stopping. It made him alter his patterns, shape them to the boundaries set up by the notes, made him frame his actions around what she composed.
He hated it.
The worst thing was how happy she had looked when the damn thing had finally finished. Her face glowed and her posture was more relaxed then he had ever seen. She had enjoyed that exercise in torture. He had stared at her, trying to see if she had done something that had made him participate in that mockery of life. He could not believe that any part of him would have participated had it not been compelled, but he could find no evidence that she was the source of that coercion. Watching her, he concluded that she was hiding nothing, or at least nothing of that magnitude. She was too open and relaxed to have controlled him.
If nothing else, he was sure by now that she was not the sort of person who could manipulate others with impunity. She had some of those morals that humans liked to drape around themselves, trappings of false decency that they used to convince themselves that they were more then animals. It always stuck him as funny that humans who could be strong emasculated themselves in the pursuit of justice or morality, when what they should do is destroy the weak. Denying their animal nature did them no good in the end; they would either have to break the bonds they embraced or be ground under the heel of those who did not subscribe to their weakness.
She didn't strike him as the type of person who would meekly succumb to anyone. It would be interesting to see how she handled compromising her values. Most humans who carried morals with them hated to have to give them up, but he wasn't so sure about her. That one night, when he had caught up to her, he caught a glimpse of the coldness of her soul. It excited him; he wanted to see more. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to care much for her own well-being, but once they reached a place with more people, he would have to see if her could see more of that delightful ice.
On a whim, he wandered over to where she slept. Looking down at her, he reflected again on how easy it would be to kill her. In human terms, she was quite tough, but he knew that it would be simple for him to end her life if he so desired. She was so fragile, clinging to life even when she knew that life was not worth living. Did she greet sleep each night as an escape from this hell world? Many people did, he knew, yet so many kept waking up the next morning. It made no sense.
Not for the first time he wondered why more humans didn't end their miserable lives. Was this existence they stole so much more to be preferred then the sweet silence of the grave? Was the struggle to see another day worth the degrading actions one must perform just to be granted the right to fight again? He didn't know the answers to these questions, and quite frankly didn't care to know. He didn't concern himself that much with the motivations of humans outside of knowing how to use them to predict their moves. Devoting any more of his thought or his time to the puzzle was more then they deserved.
She shivered as a cool breeze blew through the oasis. The blanket she huddled under was scant protection against the cold of the desert. Her face had taken on an unhealthy sheen again. Knives leaned over and tested the temperature of her skin. It was cooler then it should have been. Likely, she was developing a case of hypothermia. He stood and looked down at her. Keeping this human well was getting to be a chore. He turned and walked away, leaving her cold and alone.
But not for long. A couple minutes later he returned, his own bedding piled in his arms. He remade his bed near her, settling to the sand, his back to her. Carefully, so as not to wake her up and have to deal with any questions, he scooted closer, willing to share a little heat if it meant she would be well enough to answer a few questions tomorrow. He had so many he wished to ask, and if she spent most of the day unconscious he wouldn't get any answers.
His back neared hers, and then he stopped, willing to radiate heat, but not wiling to touch her. Therefore, he was not pleased when she sighed and shifted closer to him, touching her back to his. He would have pulled away, but he could feel the muscles of her back relaxing as they drew in his body heat. Her shivering began to ease, but did not subside completely. He decided to wait to move away until after she quit shivering, but fell asleep himself before that came to pass.
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Kiley woke up slowly, reveling in the feeling of warmth. She loved waking up next to someone, the feel of their body near hers. There was something incredibly intimate about surrendering yourself, trusting someone while you slumbered. A lot of people liked to say that she never trusted anyone, but that wasn't right. She trusted lots of people. She just could rarely trust them far enough to sleep near them. And while she trusted a few people with her life, she could never trust anyone with her heart.
No, she trusted people. She trusted them to betray her. They always did; it wasn't like she kept herself apart from the world without good reason. No one liked her, and while she couldn't make herself enjoy the fact, she had accepted it a long time ago. People simply didn't like her. For most of them, it was her past that made them turn away in revulsion. Others just couldn't stand her independent spirit. Some acted like her life was a betrayal of all they held dear.
So it was no surprise that all these people who didn't like her felt that she couldn't trust them in return. They would be even more surprised to learn that she rather liked most of the people she met, even when they hated her. It was never very hard to find something to like about someone, even when they were your enemies. And finding something to like in the people around her helped keep her form killing them when they pissed her off. Which all in all was a good thing.
She moved slightly away from the presence at her back, trying not to disturb whoever it was. She stretched, feeling sore all over and not quite sure why. She rolled over, and at first couldn't figure out who was sleeping next to her. It was a guy, but she didn't know any blonde men with shoulders like a god's. Yummy. Her mind roamed idly, trying to attach a name to the body. If it weren't for those shoulders he looked almost like Mike. She was tempted to lift the blanket to see if the rest of the body matched. He arm snaked forward to lift the covers for a peek, but sudden realization swept cold shivers through her body.
Oh, god. The past year crashed down on her in an instant. She kept forgetting it, forgetting the horror. She supposed it was her mind's way of protecting her, but losing those precious moments of forgetfulness was beginning to crush her. The agony seemed worse when so starkly contrasted with what she had lost. She drew her arm back and rolled so her back was to him again. She was careful not to touch him, not wanting to take that sort of liberty.
The calm happiness of waking up next to an attractive man had vanished, leaving a cold disappointment that rolled through her in waves. It was gone, it was all gone. That life she had carved out for herself, the acceptance, the feeling of belonging, it was all gone. She couldn't help but remember the pain, the fresh scars that every day in captivity had placed on her soul, and she was faced again with the betrayal of all her dreams.
She wanted to rage against the unfairness of it all, scream to the heavens and have them listen. She didn't, just as she hadn't every other time the notion took her. Railing against fate was pointless. What was done was done, and not worth obsessing over. She knew that, and the knowledge had helped her escape the torments of her childhood, but it was hard for her to divorce herself from the only thing close to happiness she had even known.
She had been feared, that's true, but it was only awe. She enjoyed how people watched her and envied, knowing that they could never match her superhuman grace. It annoyed her that they attributed such feats of strength and agility to her heritage and not hard work, but she was pleased with how she had upheld her family pride. She was respected, as a good leader should be. Anyone in her unit knew that she was firm, expecting immediate obedience, but they also knew she was entirely fair. The fact that she had saved most of their lives at one time or another helped as well, but all of her dealings with them were just, and they knew it. She would risk everything for someone who held her loyalty, and that inspired the same reaction in others. And she had been viewed as a bit of a hero, after all the time she had risked her life and returned. They had named her after her father, calling her his daughter in spirit as well as blood. Nothing could have pleased her more. She hadn't been happy, exactly, as there was no place in her life for such a soft emotion, but she sometimes felt she might have been happy, had things been only a little different. If nothing else she was content with what she had.
And then it was all torn from her. The past she had shut away behind her had been dragged out into the present, paraded before the world for all to see and judge her. They viewed her crimes and hated her, hated that she had made them respect her, hated that she had tried to escape the rightful justice that her crimes had dictated. Some few saw her more recent actions as a measure of atonement, but all agreed that she could never atone for her sins, not if she lived a thousand years.
She agreed with them. Her soul was black with her sins. She just wondered what else she was supposed to do. She no longer wished to commit such crimes, to do such awful deeds that she hated herself after. Did punishment equate with justice? What punishment could even equal her misdeeds? Even taking her life had obviously not been enough, since she was still here, paying for them beyond her first death. If she died here, would that finally be the end? Or would she continue, floating through the dimensions from one sort of torment to another?
She loved how the reformed villains in fiction could always find some great death or final sacrifice, something the surviving heroes could point to and remark that such an exit paid for all the evil they had done. She had tried that, tried to find that death that exonerated her, but it eluded her. She tried to revere life, to protect the innocent and occasionally the foolish from themselves as a hero should. She always put herself in the path of the greatest harm, willing to take the damage that someone else might escape unscathed. But it was never enough.
She wasn't able to equate a life saved with one she had taken, not one life, or two, or ten. Everyone she had killed was an indelible stain on her soul, and all the lives she saved were nothing in comparison. She could never make things right again; it was impossible to change the past, to bring back life once it had fled. She wished that just once, someone would help her find an answer, a response that would help heal the hemorrhage in her heart. Someone must know how to heal the soul of someone who was no longer evil, but had forfeited the right to ever be good.